BlackBerry to Launch in U.S. in Mid-March

NEW YORK—Research In Motion Ltd. unveiled two new BlackBerry phones on Wednesday crucial to the company's turnaround, but the first of the those devices won't be available in the crucial U.S. market until mid-March.

Research In Motion unveiled two new BlackBerry phones on Wednesday crucial to the company's turnaround, but the first of the those devices won't be available in the U.S. market until mid-March. Spencer Ante joins Lunch Break with the latest. Photo: AP.

In an interview ahead of a BlackBerry 10 launch event in New York, RIM Chief Executive Thorsten Heins said the first of two phones—a touch-screen-only device called the Z10—will be available in the U.K. later this week, and in Canada and the United Arab Emirates next week.

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Both of those markets are important for RIM, but are small compared with the U.S., which has many more potential customers and typically bigger profit margins.

Shares of RIM, which were up about 4% when Mr. Heins began discussing the new phones at a media event in New York, were down about 7% after the event.

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Blackberry Z10 model
Research in Motion

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Mr. Heins blamed the delay in the U.S. rollout on the longer time it takes for American carriers to test new devices. AT&T Inc. declined to comment, and the other carriers weren't immediately available.

"They do the best they can," Mr. Heins said. "Would I have loved to see it earlier? Absolutely. Make no mistake everyone's trying to pull the date in."

Photos From the Event

Mario Tama/Getty Images

RIM is pumping "several hundreds of million" dollars into marketing around the launch of the Z10 and a phone with a physical keyboard called the Q10, said Mr. Heins. RIM will air its first-ever Super Bowl ad on Sunday. The company said Wednesday it will also change its corporate name to BlackBerry and trade under the ticker symbol "BBRY."

But the delay with U.S. carriers means that after the Super Bowl ad runs, customers in the U.S. won't be able to go out and buy the phone for roughly another six weeks. It also pushes the release closer to the launch of other new smartphones, such as Samsung Electronics Co.'s next Galaxy S phone expected to come out this spring.

RIM said all four big U.S. carriers—AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc.—plan to offer the phone eventually. But the carriers differed in their announcements, and none of them said when the phones would be available.

Verizon Wireless said it would sell the Z10 for $199 with a contract—including an exclusive white version—and will also offer the Q10. AT&T also announced plans to carry the two phones, without offering any detail.

Sprint plans to only sell the keyboard-equipped Q10 at this time. A spokeswoman said the company has no immediate plans to offer the Z10.

A T-Mobile spokeswoman said the Z10 will be available "later this spring," but the company has no immediate plans to sell the Q10.

In Canada, RIM said the Z10 would sell for "around" $149.99 on a three-year plan. The suggested retail price of unsubsidized Z10 phones is $599, RIM said.

The Z10 phone looks similar to but is slightly bigger than Apple Inc.'s iPhone 5, and has an 8 megapixel camera and high definition video, similar to other new smartphone models. The Q10's touch screen is significantly smaller, to give space for the physical keyboard, and looks similar to the recent BlackBerry Bold models. The Q10 device won't be available until April.

On Wednesday RIM announced several partners that will have their applications on BB10 phones, but perhaps the biggest surprise was Skype.

"We are excited about our plans to bring Skype to smartphones running the brand new BlackBerry 10 platform," Bob Rosin, vice president of business development for Microsoft Corp.'s Skype division, said in a statement. "We are working closely with BlackBerry to ensure Skype runs great on BlackBerry 10 devices."

In the lead-up to the launch of the new phones, RIM acknowledged one of its key cash generators—service revenue it gets from carriers that use RIM's proprietary network—started to come under pressure. RIM has said it was in the middle of a service revenue "transition."

On Tuesday, Mr. Heins provided some details about possible new sources of revenue for the company, chief among them being RIM's popular messaging service, BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM, he said.

"We want to leverage that BBM platform to create new services that are really value-added services that people, companies, whatever, are really willing to pay for," Mr. Heins said.

One possibility he mentioned would be a video chat service aimed at small businesses.

Last year, RIM hired banks to advise on potential strategic options but played down speculation about a potential sale or licensing partnership while it worked on getting BlackBerry 10 to market.

Mr. Heins said he continues to keep his options open, but says he's still focused on seeing BB10 out the door first.

"I'm happy to take those calls [from potential partners] and see what they come up with," Mr. Heins said in the interview. "But the first thing is the proof point. I think we have created a huge value in RIM. Let's prove BB10, then let's see where it goes."

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